A reliance on so-called ‘bottom up’ ‘self-help’ approaches to building human capital has failed to deliver anywhere near expected outcomes in communities over the past two decades in Australia. Controlled by entity-based interests, community groups have been unable to harness their community’s capacity to be creative, innovative and enterprising on a broad front. They have preferenced pragmatic short term funding from without, over longer term transformational goals from within. Social capital is seen as a loss as a result. Education, at all levels in the human capital chain, needs to develop skills that are creative, enterprising and engaging, if it is to create an asset of worth that can tackle societal and environmental goals of significance in the community. It involves educational organisations redesigning structures, cultures, relationships and modes of dialogue with a wide view about the way learning is perceived in building human capital at the community level. While there is still some way to go, there are worthwhile examples that take us forward in this area. At the higher education level, examples are given from the Sunshine Coast, other areas of Australia and overseas.